Tag: Nicholas Cabasilas

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Advent Meditation Week 1

Advent Wreath

Just as we celebrate and anticipate the Incarnation of the Logos on the material plane, so, too, we want to prepare for the analogous birth within the human soul.

Valentin Tomberg, in Letter II, refers to the “second birth” as Christian Yoga. Hence, the elements of Christian Yoga are analogous to the stages of yoga described by Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras. In Letter XVI, The Tower of Destruction, these stages are related to the three stages of the spiritual life described by St. John of the Cross. Hence, we have this schema relating these yoga stages in three languages:
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Advent Meditation: Purity of Thought

Advent Wreath

The distinguishing mark of the Hermetic path is that it seeks to make dogmas and teachings “real” in consciousness. As Tomberg insists, this does not make it “better” than the exoteric teaching, but that it is a path that some are called to follow.

In this spirit, we can meditate on what Christmas means.

  • The birth in the past of Christ the Redeemer.
  • The expectation of Christ the Judge at the end of time.
  • The birth of Christ in the soul eternally, now.

Redemption is the reversal of the effects of the Fall. The Hermetic Tradition calls this process “regeneration” as we seek to make that real in consciousness. The undoing of the Fall requires the second birth of Christ/Logos in the soul. That is, the soul, as the passive element, reflects the activity of the Spirit. Disturbances in the soul — passions, images, desires, thoughts — will distort the spirit, just as disturbances on a pond distort its reflection of the surrounding forest.
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